Hawaiian Homeownership Opporunity Act of 2007

Floor Speech

HAWAIIAN HOMEOWNERSHIP OPPORTUNITY ACT OF 2007

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Ms. HIRONO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman and my colleague for yielding time.

I rise in strong support of H.R. 835, the Hawaiian Homeownership Opportunity Act of 2007 and ask for my colleagues' support of the bill.

The Act assists the State of Hawaii's Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, DHHL, to provide opportunities for homeownership for low-income native Hawaiians. The bill in no way addresses the question of whether or not Native Hawaiians should be recognized as a sovereign entity akin to Alaska Natives or American Indians.

During debate on this bill last Wednesday, no Member came to the floor to speak in opposition to the bill. In fact, the gentleman from Arizona, who managed the time, expressed support for the bill.

Unfortunately, either during the debate or afterward, e-mails were sent to Members containing at least two erroneous assertions: first, that this bill is unconstitutional and, second, that this bill ``would confer on Native Hawaiians an arrangement like that between the Federal Government and American Indian tribes.'' Opponents then compounded the error by citing the Rice v. Cayetano voting rights Supreme Court decision in support of their broad assertions.

As to the first assertion, the constitutionality of any measure must be decided by the courts; and, clearly, the courts have not opined on the constitutionality of this bill. As to the second assertion, there is nothing in the bill that speaks to creating a political relationship between Native Hawaiians and the Federal Government akin to the relationship between the Federal Government and American Indian tribes.

This bill, which promotes homeownership, a goal that all of us can support in bipartisan fashion, has been targeted for defeat by opponents who are misreading the bill as well as case law.

I was a member of the Cayetano administration in Hawaii and sat in the Supreme Court when arguments in the Rice case were heard. It may interest some of you to know that one of the lawyers arguing the State of Hawaii's case was John Roberts, who is now Chief Justice of our Supreme Court.

The central issue in the Rice v. Cayetano case was the narrow question of whether the State of Hawaii could hold an election for trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs where only Native Hawaiians could vote. In holding that the State could not so limit these elections, the majority opinion of the Court deliberately avoided the question of whether or not Native Hawaiians deserved the same right of self-determination granted to American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Nothing in the Rice decision holds that programs that benefit Native Hawaiians are unconstitutional. The majority court decision did not call into question the trust relationship between the U.S. Government and the Native Hawaiian people. It did not strike down the Office of Hawaiian Affairs or any other program benefiting Native Hawaiians as unconstitutional.

While the entire Hawaii congressional delegation, Hawaii's Governor, who happens to be a Republican, and the Hawaii legislature supports self-determination for Native Hawaiians, that is not the subject of the bill before us today. My colleague and I have introduced H.R. 505, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2007, also known as the Akaka bill. We can discuss the merits of self-determination for Native Hawaiians when and if the Congress considers that bill.

The bill before us today provides assistance to a limited group of Native Hawaiians, those designated as beneficiaries under the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1921. That bill, in recognition of the desperate poverty and displacement from the land of Native Hawaiians, established a homesteading program to place eligible Native Hawaiians, or those with at least 50 percent Hawaiian blood, on lands in Hawaii designated for that purpose. The law was passed at the urging of the Territory of Hawaii's delegate to Congress, Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole. Some 200,000 acres were set aside for the purpose of providing Native Hawaiians with land. This 1921 Act of Congress has never been challenged in the Supreme Court in the last 86 years.

Despite the good intentions of the Congress, progress in meeting the goal of delivering land to Native Hawaiians was slow. Most of the Hawaiian homelands were located in areas far from jobs, and infrastructure like roads and utilities were nonexistent. Many individuals were on the waiting list for more than 30 years. The Hawaiian Homelands Homeownership Act of 2000 has provided the Department of Hawaiian Homelands with much-needed resources to expand opportunities for homeownership among low-income Native Hawaiians. Especially critical has been the ability to use these funds to develop the infrastructure that makes placing homes on these properties possible.

Because the issue of Native Hawaiian rights as a native people lies at heart of the opposition of this bill, I would like to quote attorneys H. Christopher Bartolomucci, Viet Dinh, and Neal Katyal, who stated in a February, 2007, legal document prepared for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs:

``Congressional legislation dealing with indigenous groups is political, not racial, in character and therefore is neither discriminatory nor unconstitutional. Rice v. Cayetano specifically declined to address whether `Native Hawaiians have a status like that of Indians in organized tribes' and `whether Congress may treat Native Hawaiians as it does the Indian tribes'.''

As previously mentioned, we can and should have the debate on whether or not Native Hawaiians should enjoy the rights to self-determination given to other Native American groups when that bill is squarely before us in H.R. 505. Native Hawaiians deserve no less.

This bill before us today simply provides Native Hawaiians who are eligible for homesteads under the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act passed by Congress with the financing tools to allow them to realize for their families the dream of homeownership which otherwise would be available to very few of them.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill. Mahalo nui loa.

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